Organise your finances

If you operate as a sole trader you aren’t legally required to have a separate bank account for your business, you can use your personal account. However, for easy tracking of business income and expenses, you may consider opening a separate account for your business.

There are a large of number of manual and electronic bookkeeping products available that could suit your business needs. If you’ve employed a financial professional, have a chat to them about the products that will best integrate with their systems.

When starting your business, you'll need to decide on the payment terms and payment types you will accept from your customers. You may also need to set up an invoicing template and receipts that you will give customers when selling goods and services.

It’s important to send correctly formatted invoices for the goods and services you provide. Make sure to include a clear due date and follow up on payments that fall behind. If your business provides subscriptions or memberships, you may wish to consider setting up an automatic payment system or direct debit to save yourself the hassle of having to chase payments.

Keep track of the money that’s coming in and going out of your business. An easy way to do this is to use a cash flow statement. A cash flow statement will allow you track your income and plan your expenses, so that you can plan ahead and feel comfortable in the knowledge that you’ll have the money to pay your bills.

Find out more…

Check out our financial templates to help you get an understanding of your business's financial position:

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